Post navigation

Rumors after Rumors – Part II

From the first day of this blog, I tried to seperate my blogging world from my business world. This is the intention, although sometimes the two worlds run into each other. This does happen, since there is natural connection betwen the two worlds – it is all about me.

Rumors

I am happy that in the last two days, the rumors finally stopped, or a better way to describe it, “faded out from the homepage of major portal sites”. This let me rest for a while and describe to my readers (in the blogging world) about what happened (without concerning too much to my friends in the business world).

Here is how the rumor started.

On Nov 20, the second day I am back to Shanghai, Donews.com reported that Allan (CMO of Google Asia) will join Bo and me to startup a new eCommerce site, and I will quit Kijiji to join the company.

This is definitely a rumor, but I was still impressed about how the news was pickup by all major portals in China and various versions of the same report appeared everywhere in 24 hours.

When Sina.com, Sohu.com put the news to major locations, and some paper media picked up and printed it out, the rumor became a big rumor. Just now, when I searched about my name, there are 114 articles in Google News about this quitting stuff.

Later, Google confirmed Allan’s quit, and there came more buzz around it. Combined with other market speculations, market analysis got some interesting results. (Like in my previous post, I don’t want to quote or give links here).

Impact on Me

It does have some impact on me. The day when I posted my previous entry, I worked with media to decline the news and to explain about the strategy of Kijiji for the next year. After an in-depth interview with Sina went out, and some short report of the decline came out from Donews.com, and Sohu.com, the part about me was settled.

It is not a media crisis for me. Rumors are just rumors and it does not hurt.

I am Still with Kijiji, Happily

I am still with Kijiji, the start up within a big company. I am as passionate as I started it in China one and half years ago. I love the product, I love the concept and most importantly, I do enjoy the great team I have here, and the super talented people in the team. I am not quitting, for sure.

“The Rumor Values”

I got some phone calls, some SMS, one or two emails and many MSN Messenger chats. — I did want to change my MSN display name from “No Longer Happy New Year” to “Rumors….”, but it is only two months to the end of this behavior art work, I still kept my MSN Display name unchanged (for a year).

One of the most interesting SMS I got was from Rex. Rex said: “Jian Shuo, congratulations! You finally get some rumor value.”.

I replied: “What do you mean by rumor value?”

He said:

The rumor value is the value people get from creating, and spreading rumor about a person. Not very one has this kind of rumor value. So congratulations :-)

Well. This message comfortable me a lot. It is not completely a bad thing, anyway.

I wish I still have the freedom to choose topics that interest me most. Thanks for giving me the freedom to do that. I know the topics are not always interesting for everyone. Anyway, I am still the most important reader of this blog. Everything I write? at least it should look interesting to me.

Just as this case, when a banch of media are calling me, calling my PR agency to dig more details about the news, I cannot disclose anything about it before we done some communication (internally and externally). The best way, or the professional way is not to mention it, confirm it, or decline it (considering media need to be the first to report this, instead of a blog). This was the background. There are so many things in my life with tons of background information that I cannot convey to my readers.

The note is for me, personally. I want it to remind me after several years about this interesting event.

It is also for friends who care about me – to assure them I am doing well, and it may also to some journalists. :-)

However, it is NOT for my regular readers. This is the rare occasion my role as a public business person in the competitive market run into my role on this blog – as a normal person living in Shanghai, and to help visitors and expats in Shanghai to get more sense about the city, and to find some fun (sometimes).

People said it is OK to stop for one day or two. I am not so sure about it. For me, a blog is all about life, and it is like the pulse of heart-beat. I am a believer that at least by posting a “OOB (Out of Blogging)” let people know what is going on, and let myself about what happened that day, instead of a blank memory. Blogging is like exercise. If you quit for one day or two, it is not easy to pickup after two days – for me, blog is more like a habit, instead of professional writing. I am not worried about the blog being “quickly kicked out the blogosphere”. To be honest, I don’t care about blogosphere. The most important thing is all about me, and my life. My life continues with or without attention from “blogosphere”. It is the every happy day I have that matters. I value interaction, and I value good friends I got from the blog. There is nothing to do with popularity, or fame here.

P.S. I am NOT going to Google. Never thought about it. I was with Microsoft and saw the spirit when Microsoft undertook the hardest time (the DOJ case). It is all about how people react with difficulties that shapes a great company, instead of how people behave under glory and fame. I don’t like Google now. Just my 2 cents.

Disclaimer: The post is provided “AS IS”. It is just my personal view and does not represent the point of view of anyone else or any organization/company.

13 thoughts on “Rumors after Rumors – Part II”

I am glad to here that you are holding on strong to your believe; writing as the guy who live in Shanghai. I was in Shanghai 2 weeks ago, because of your blog, I have learn so much about the city which makes me feel so much at home and able me to fully enjoy what Shanghai have to offer. I have plan to go to the Northeastern provinces in January 08 and I want to stop over in Shanghai again. Keep-up with the good work.

I am very glad to meet you in your BLOG ,I am in suzhou ,a small but comfortable city,you must have been to the city . sorry ,I am not vert used to in English , in my life and my work ,I don’t have so much opportunity to use English .In a word ,you do a very good job!

This is a wonderful way of putting it…..I could not agree more with you…….Reading your blog for the last three years…I can vouch that you write more for pleasure and helping out than to attract any attention. It was not right on some of the folks to comment in a derogatory manner on your last posting. I am sure you still will remain unfazed and will continue with many more wonderful anecdotes in your blog.

Too bad there are so many “hassles” that go along with being a more public figure these days. I feel privileged that we blog-readers have an opportunity to know the more personal side of you, Jian Shuo. Hang in there!

I see this is a conspiracy of defamation in an attempt to weaken the integrity between you and your company. This happens a lot in the western business world and seems Shanghai is using the same trick now which is an effective and cheap ways to remove the competition.

Watch out those head hunters, they can either make you or break you (with an empty post) and you never know the mechanism behind it.